My Heart: Your Home

God is always at work. I know this. But there are times I feel the process more than others. It has been/is one of those times. As I told someone today, it's a beautiful pain...it's so worth it, but it is painful.

While reflecting on this fact today, I was reminded of something I wrote awhile back during a time of learning a similar lesson. I wanted to share it with you all....


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My Heart: Your Home

I may not normally, as the saying goes, “keep God in a box,” but I’m realizing I do keep Him in a room – a room in my heart that I keep locked up. I enter it often, enjoy being there, and even feel trusting enough to leave the door unlocked when I leave. But when He opens it and begins to go into my other “rooms,” when because of Him I see things I don’t want to see, and when He wants me to throw out my deadly treasures – then I shove Him back into “His” room and breathlessly block the door and bolt it tight.

“Father, You’ve been roaming again. Right now, because of the pain, I want to close You back up. I want to keep You in that one room (or even set of rooms) that I have allowed You to 'clean up' enough to dwell in. I don’t like it when You go out into the hallways and bedrooms and closets…I feel sometimes I let you free, You get to a certain door, I get a taste of what it would be like if You cleaned that room enough to live in and I send You away. This must be why I keep having to learn the same lessons over and over; I never let You completely change that room.

Oh Father, how I pray You would kick down the doors I’ve bolted, go through my 'heart house' and take care of it in a hurry! That’s not Your Nature, though, is it? You won’t take over until the door is opened. Father, give me the strength to not just unlock the door that keeps You where I 'want' You, cause me to swing it wide and welcome You to my whole heart, miserable as it is. I want You to have complete reign in me, every room. I want to have a special, big place occupied only by You: the Master suite. But I want all the rooms to be for Your pleasure, for my enjoying You.

As You clear away what seems to currently be occupying that Master room in my heart, please hold me close. I watch You take away and even destroy things I hold so very dear, and I hurt horribly. I watch You take things away for a while, until I’m ready for them, and I cry. I watch You move things out and put in their proper room, and I am ashamed. Please comfort me as You work. Give me a joy I’ve never known through the pain. Don’t let me flee the “house” out of depression or fear. Show me the beauty of the changes You make. Keep me from holding tight to things or 'hiding' what I can’t bear parting with. I surrender all. Everything. Keep me 'unsettled' because it means You’re working.

Make all the many rooms Your’s, places where You are completely at home. I love You. Welcome to my house."